Our vision of success for every child means that children should have the opportunity to grow up with security, safety, stability, and respect from the first days of their lives. Creating success for every child is about constructing a nurturing and limitless future that we hope to leave the next generation. We want our children to grow into people, with the opportunities to choose how they thrive, with the right to their own lives.

The right to life means the right to safety. It includes the right of mothers to bring children into the world on their own terms, the right of children to learn without the threat of traumatic violence in their schools, and the rights of communities, especially communities of color, to conduct their lives without the looming peril of being ravaged by mass shootings.

When we prioritize life, it means that we love and honor it. We celebrate and protect it, in its present and existing form. We are talking about female-bodied lives, immigrant lives, black lives, and young lives.

First 5 San Mateo County stands united with our communities— those reeling from the trauma of gun violence, those who are scared, and those who can envision a future without it. We are here for our families and children.